New Jersey

LETTER: Back the implementation of Article V

This is a great letter to the editor written by a Convention of States volunteer in New Jersey.

Many Americans feel that our federal government has demonstrated a fair amount of overreach during past presidential administrations and is not on the right path toward preserving our Constitutional rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A recent concern that New Jerseyans have is the Common Core State Standards program and the federal government’s influence over it. Net neutrality proposed by the FCC is another concern.

In the U.S. Constitution, our Founding Fathers provided Article V, which is a method for the states to add an amendment to the Constitution independent of Congress. The purpose of Article V was to enable the states to retain their sovereignty in the case of federal government overreach.

In the past year or so there has been a grassroots movement to pursue Article V by the states through an organization called Convention of the States. On a nationwide basis there have been three states that have passed legislation implementing Article V and 25 more states have introduced legislation. New Jersey is one of those 25 states.

Senate bill SCR130 and House bill ACR171 have been introduced to impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, to limit its power and jurisdiction, and to limit the terms of office for its officials and members of Congress.

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